THE HIGHWAY OF MONTENEGRO
We went next day to see the doctor, who was late, so we strolled out to the market. They were selling grapes and figs, fresh walnuts, and lots of little dried fish, strung on to rings of willow, from the lake of Scutari. The scene, with the men in their costumes of red and blue, the women all respectably dressed in long embroidered coats of pale blue or white, and the village idiot, a man prancing about dressed in nothing but a woman's overall, was very gay. We caught the doctor later. He was talking with a Mrs. G——, an Englishwoman, from the hospital at Podgoritza: she was trying to hustle him as one hustles the butcher who has belated the meat. The doctor had let up his efforts since his orgy of respectability in Scutari, and his beard and whiskers were enjoying a half-inch holiday from the razor. With him was a Slav-Hungarian, who recommended us to go home by Gussigne, Plav and Ipek, the best scenery in all Montenegro he said; he himself had just returned from Scutari, whence he had advanced with a Montenegrin army halfway across Albania. At each village the natives had fled, burying their corn and driving off their cattle, leaving the villages deserted, and the army, starving, had at last been forced to retire. Dr. Ob promised us a motor by four, but added that they had no oil and very little benzine. Then growing more confidential, he took us by the buttonholes and asked us to use our best influence with the Count de Salis, and request him to tell the Admiralty to allow petrol to be brought up from Salonika, where the British had laid an embargo upon it. He promised pathetically that all the petrol would be brought up overland.
Intensely amused by the doctor's idea of our importance, we solemnly delivered his message to the Count.
We went to the Serbian Minister, a charming man with a freebooter's face, for our passports, and then back to Dr. Ob. The motor was going off at 6.30 he said. We cheered internally, for we were getting tired of Cettinje, which reminded us of a watchmaker's wife with her best silk dress on. On our way downstairs we called in to thank the Minister of War for our jolly trip; and he wished us "Bon voyage."
We got en route almost up to time, with us was Mrs. G——, who was also going back as far as Podgoritza. She was storekeeper and accountant for the Wounded Allies, and ever had a hard and troublesome task between what she needed and what she could get from the Sanitary Department. She took the front seat with Jo, and inside Jan found a French sailor of the wireless telegraphy, who had had typhoid fever, but was now going back to work. As we rattled down the curves and along the edge of the darkening chasms of the mountain side, he summed up with the brevity of a "rapin."
"Dans la journée ici, vous savez, il y'a de quoi faire des clichés."
We stopped at Rieka for water, and then on once more. In the glare of our headlights, little clumps of soldiers, with donkeys loaded with the new uniforms, loomed suddenly out of the darkness. Once a donkey took fright and bolted back, and the soldier in charge yelled and pointed his rifle at us. If we had moved he would have shot without compunction. Later the men had bivouacked, and all along the rest of the road we passed little fires of fresh brushwood, the sparks pouring up like fountains into the night, round which the soldiers and drivers were sitting and singing their weird songs.
At Podgoritza we found Dr. Lilias Hamilton at supper with her staff. She has had rather a hard time. The hospital was intended for Ipek, but for some reason, although there were wounded in the town, the Montenegrins decided to move it to Podgoritza, where there were none. After a difficult journey across the mountains they settled down, but could never get sufficient transport from the Government to bring their stores over, except in small quantities. They started to work, but as there were few soldiers to treat, Dr. Lilias, being a lady, interested herself in the Turkish female population, a thing which the Montenegrins thought a criminal waste of time, and tried to stop.
We got a bedroom in the hotel, and tired out, tried to sleep; but the occupants of the café began a set of howling songs, very unmusical, and kept us awake till past twelve. We have never heard this kind of singing anywhere else.
Next day we crossed the river and explored the quaint and beautiful streets of the Turkish quarter. The people are equally offensive on both sides of the town; however, Podgoritza seems to be the White-chapel of Montenegro—and we finally had to take refuge in the sheds of the French wireless telegraphy. The commandant at the motor depôt again treated us rudely, but the Prefect was nice, this time. He promised us a carriage on the morrow if no motor were forthcoming.
After supper the people began the awful howling songs; also there was a wild orchestra which had one clarinet for melody and about ten deep bass trumpets for accompaniment.
Next morning no carriage came, so off to the Prefect. He promised one "odmah," which being translated is "at once," but means really within "eight or nine hours." We waited. Nine a.m. passed. Ten a.m. went by. A small boy sneaked up and tried to sell some contraband tobacco; but Jan had just bought "State." An angry Turkish gentleman came and said that his horses had been requisitioned to take us to Andrievitza, and that we weren't going to get them till one o'clock, because he was using them. We returned to the Prefect, not to complain—oh no—but to ask him to telegraph to Andrievitza that we were coming. He was naturally surprised to see us again, and explanations followed. A very humbled and much better tempered Turk came to the café to say that the horses would be with us "odmah."
A drizzle had been falling all the morning; at last the carriage came. Our driver was a wretched half-starved, high-cheeked Moslem in rags, whose trousers were only made draught proof by his sitting on the holes. He tried to squeeze another passenger upon us; but we were wiser, and were just not able to understand what he was saying. Our Turk's method of driving was to tie the reins to the carriage rail, flourishing a whip and shouting with vigour; every ten minutes he glanced uneasily backwards to see that nothing had broken loose or come away.
The valley we entered had been very deep, but at some period had been half filled by a deposit of sand and pebble which had hardened into a crumbling rock. We were driving over the gravelly shelf, above our head rose walls of limestone, and deep below was the river which had eaten the softer agglomerate into a hundred fantastic caverns. All along the road we passed groups of tramping volunteers fresh from America with store clothes and suitcases; the sensible were also festooned with boots. It was pretty cold sitting in the carriage, and it grew colder as we mounted.
At last we halted to rest the horses at a café. The influence of "Pod" was heavy still. A group of grumpy people were sitting around a fire built in the middle of the floor; they did not greet us—which is unusual in Montenegro—but continued the favourite Serb recreation of spitting. In the centre of them was an old man on a chair, also expectorating, and by his side one older and scraggier, his waistcoat covered with snuff and medals, palpitated in a state of senile decay, holding in a withered hand a palmfull of snuff which he had forgotten to inhale. There were a lot of women saying nothing and spitting. A sour, hard-faced woman admitted that there was coffee.
Jo, trying to cheer things up a bit, said brightly—
"Is it far to Andrievitza?"
A woman mumbled, "Far, bogami."
Jo again: "It is cold on the road."
A long silence, broken with the sound of spitting, followed. At last a woman in the darkest corner murmured—
"Cold, bogami."
It was like the opening of a Maeterlinckian play, but we gave it up, sipped our coffee, and when we had finished, fled outside into the cold which, after all, was warmer than these people's welcome. Outside we met a young man who spoke German, and as he wanted to show off, he stopped to converse. We were joined by an older man who claimed to be his father. The father was really a jolly old boy. He said his son was a puny weakling, but as for himself he never had had a doctor in his life. So Jan tried his mettle with a cigar. An officer, a filthy old peasant in the remains of a battered uniform, joined the group, but he was not charming; however, Jan offered him a cigarette. The old yokel rushed on his fate. He said—
"Cigarettes are all very well; but I would rather have one of those you gave to the other fellow."
The road wound on and up in the usual way, rain came down at intervals, and it grew colder and colder. At last we extracted all our spare clothes from the knapsack and put them on. We reached the top of the pass and began to rattle down the descent on the further side, and we kept our spirits up, in the growing gloom, by singing choruses: "The old Swanee river" and "Uncle Ned."
We pulled up at dusk at a dismal hovel, on piles, with rickety wooden stairs leading to a dimly lighted balcony over which fell deep wooden eaves.
"Is this Jabooka?" we asked, for we had been told to alight at Jabooka.
"No," said the driver; "we cannot reach Jabooka to-night. But here are fine beds, fine, fine, fine!"
We climbed in. The rooms were whitewashed and looked all right, but there was a funny smell. We shall know what it means a second time. There was a crowd of American Montenegrin volunteers in the kitchen. One gay fellow was in a bright green dressing-gown like overcoat: he said that his wife—a hard-featured woman who looked as if nobody loved her—had brought his saddle horse. We got some hard-boiled eggs and maize bread. Maize bread is always a little gritty, for it has in its substance no binding material, but when it is well cooked and has plenty of crust is quite eatable. French cooking is far away, however, and the bread is usually a sort of soggy, half-baked flabby paste, most unpalatable and most indigestible. Here was the worst bread we yet had found.
They took us down a dark passage, in which huge lumps of raw meat hanging from the walls struck one's hand with a chill, flabby caress as one passed. In our room, four benches were arranged into a pair of widish couches; mattresses were given us and coarse hand-woven rugs. We were then left. But we could not sleep; somehow lice were in one's mind, and at last Jan awoke and lit the tiny oil lamp. He immediately slew a bug; then another; then a whopper; then one escaped; then Jo got one. In desperation we got up, smeared ourselves with paraffin, and lay down again in a dismal distressed doze till morning.
Our driver was a dilatory dog: we had said that we would leave at five a.m., and at six he was washing his teeth in the little stream which acted as the village sewer. As we were waiting our green-coated friend got away on his saddle horse, with his wife walking at its tail; the other Americans climbed into a great three-horse waggon, dragged their suit-cases after them, and off they went. We left nearer seven than six. The air was chilly, and though there were bits of blue in the sky, the hills were floating in mist, and there was a sharp shower. There were more groups of Americans trudging along, and also a fair number of peasants, the women, as usual, dignified and beautiful. Very hungry we at last came to Jabooka. A jolly woman—we were getting away from "Pod"—welcomed us and dragged us into the kitchen. She asked Jo many questions, one being, "What relation is he to you, that man with whom you travel?" The fire on the floor was nearly out, but she rained sticks on to it, blew up the great central log, which is the backbone, into a blaze, and soon the smoke was pouring into our eyes and filtering up amongst the hams in the roof. We were drinking a splendid café au lait when an old woman peered in at the door.
"Very beautiful Jabooka," she said.
We agreed heartily.
"Not dear either," she said.
We expressed surprise.
"You can buy cheap," she went on.
We regretted that we did not wish to.
"But you must eat to live," she protested.
We intimated that this was of the nature of a truism, but failed to see the connection.
"But look at them," she expostulated, holding out a large basket of apples; and we suddenly remembered that "Jabooka" means also apples, and realized that she was not a land agent.
Then on once more. In the deep valleys were large modern sawmills, but the houses were ever poor, and the windows grew smaller and smaller and were without glass. At the junction of the Kolashin road, from the north, we picked up a jolly Montenegrin with a big dog. He was a driver by profession, and he hurried our lethargic progress a little. Then the front spring broke. It was mended with wire and a piece of tree; when we started again the reins snapped.
We halted once more at a café filled with Americans; some had only left their native land six months agone, yet to the peasant they were all "Americans." Some of them seemed very dissatisfied with the reception which they had received, and we don't wonder. "In Ipek I coulden get my room," said one, "tho' I 'ad wired for 't, 'cause one o' them 'airy popes [Greek priests] 'ad come wid 'is fambly. I 'ad to sleep like a 'og, you fellers, jess like a 'og." We had been under the impression that burning patriotism had called all these men back to their country, but one sturdy fellow disabused us.
"No, you fellers," he said, "there weren't no work for us in 'Murrica. Mos' o' the places 'ad closed down ter a shift or two at the mos' per wik. And fer fellers wats used to livin' purty well there weren't enough ter pay board alone. We gotter come or we'd a starved." Of course this was not true of many.
On again, rain and sun alternating, but still we were cold, feet especially.
These mountains, these continual groups of slouching, slouch-hatted "Americans," these little weathered log cabins, falling streams, and pine trees reminded one of some tale of Bret Harte, and one found one's self expecting the sudden appearance of Broncho Billy or Jack Hamlin mounted upon a fiery mustang. But we cleared the top of the pass without meeting either, and started on our last long downhill to Andrievitza. Cheered by the rapidity of our motion the two ruffians on the box started a howling Podgoritzian kind of melody, exceedingly discordant. The driver, careless that one of our springs was but wired tree, and that wheels in Montenegro are easily decomposed, flogged his horses unmercifully, rattling along the extreme edge of one hundred foot precipices. We stopped at a café for the driver to get coffee; rattled on again, stopped to inquire the price of hay; more rattle; stopped for the driver to say, "How de doo" to a pal; more rattle; stopped to ask a man if his dog has had puppies yet.... But we protested.
Andrievitza was the prettiest village we had yet seen in Montenegro, and was full of more "Americans." In the street a small boy urged us to go to "Radoikovitches," but we went to the hotel. The hotel was full, because a Pasha from Scutari had arrived with his three wives, and all their families. So we permitted the little yellow-haired urchin to lead us to "Radoikovitches." A woman received us, without gusto, till she learned that Jo was Jan's wife, when she cheered up. A charming old officer stood rakia all round in our honour. The mayor came in to greet us, and we felt that at last Pod had been pushed behind for ever.
The mayor was a pleasant fellow, speaking French, and he confided in us that he was suffering from a "maladie d'estomac." When we thought we had sympathized enough, we asked him how far it was, and could we have horses to go to Petch. He answered that it was two days, or rather one and a half, and that the horses would await us at twelve on the following day. We went to bed early to make up for last night, but Jan, having felt rather tickly all day, hunted the corners of his shirt and found—dare we mention it—a louse, souvenir de Liéva Riéka.
As we were breakfasting next day our driver, who had been most unpleasant the whole time, sidled up and asked Jan to sign a paper. While Jan was doing so the driver burst into a volley of explanations. We thought that he was asking for a tip, but made out that he had lost (or gambled) the ten kronen which his employer had given to him for expenses. We had intended to give him no tip, for on the yesterday he had refused to carry our bags, but this made us waver. We asked Mr. Rad, etc., what we should do.
"Sign his paper," he answered gruffly, "and kick him out; he's only a dirty Turk anyhow."
The mayor sent our horses round early; but we stuck to our decision to start in the afternoon, and ordered lunch at twelve. There was a huge crowd gathered in front of the inn, and we saw that the Pasha and his harem were off. One wife wore a blue furniture cover over her, one a green, and one a brown, so that he might know them apart from the outside, for they all had heavy black veils before their faces. The Pasha himself seemed rather a decent fellow, and had much of the air of a curate conducting a school feast. Four children were thrust into two baskets which were slung on each side of one small horse, and various furniture, including a small bath (or large basin), was strapped on to others, and the Pasha followed by his wives set off walking, the Pasha occasionally throwing a graceful remark behind him.
The mayor lunched with us, and for a man who has, as he says, anæmia of the stomach, chronic dysentery, and inflammation of the intestines, he ate most freely, and if such is his daily habit, he deserved all he had got.
Our guide was the most picturesque we have yet had. He was an Albanian with a shaven poll save for a tuft by which the angels will one day lift him to heaven, small white cap like a saucer, over which was wound a twisted dirty white scarf, short white coat heavily embroidered with black braid, tight trousers, also heavily embroidered, but the waistband only pulled up to where the buttock begins to slide away—we wondered continuously why they never fell off—and the long space between coat and trousers filled with tightly wound red and orange belt. He called himself Ramases, or some such name. Our saddles were pretty good, the stirrups like shovels, the horses the best (barring at the Front) we had had since Prepolji.
We rode over a creaky bridge, Jan's horse refusing, so he went through the river, and out into the new road which is being made to Ipek. Men and women, almost all in Albanian costumes, were scraping, digging, drilling and blasting; some of the women wore a costume we had not yet seen, very short cotton skirt above the knees, and long, embroidered leggings. We passed this high-road "in posse" and, the little horses stepping along, presently caught up a trail of donkeys, the proprietor of which, a friend of Ramases, had a face like a post-impressionist sculpture.
We passed the donkeys and came to the usual sort of café, rough log hut, fire on floor—but one of the women therein gave Jo her only apple—decidedly we were away from Pod.
On again along river valleys. Jan's saddle had a knob in the seat that began to insinuate. On every hill were cut maize patches, the red stubble in the sunset looking like fields of blood.
In the dusk we came to Velika, a wooden witchlike village, where we were to stay the night, and where, as we had expected, the Pasha, ten minutes ahead of us, had commandeered all the accommodation. The captain, however, was very good, and gave us a policeman to find lodgings for us. By this time it was dark. He led us into a pitch black lane where the mud came over our boots, then we clambered up a loose earth cliff and stood looking into a room whose only light was from a small fire, as usual on the floor. Over the fire was a large pot, and a meagre-faced woman was stirring the brew. Behind her a small baby in a red and white striped blanket was pushed up to its armpits through a hole on four legs, where it hung. In a dark corner a small boy was worrying a black cat.
"Can you give these English a bed?" demanded the policeman.
The woman shook her head sadly. "Mozhe," she said, which means "It is possible."
After supper, Bovril and cheese omelette, we went out to seek the café. We trudged back through the mud and stumbled into a house full of lattice work, like a Chinese store. Startled we tried another. This time we came into a stable, but there was a ladder leading upwards, and at the top a lighted room, so we decided to explore. We climbed up and came into a large loft in which six long legged, heavily bearded Albanians were squatting about a fire; a gipsy woman with wild tousled hair and hanging breasts was in the corner of the hearth, and was telling some long monotonous tale. An Albanian, who spoke Serb, told us to come in and have coffee. It was like the illustration of some tale from the Arabian Nights. After a while we climbed out again into the night, and went home. Ramases hung about shyly, and the woman explained that he had nowhere to sleep; so we arranged that she should house him also.
Even as we poked our noses out of the door there was a promise of a fine day. Below us we could see the Pasha up and superintending the packing of his family and furniture. We celebrated by opening our last tin of jam, which we had carried carefully all the way, waiting for an occasion. We left the remains of the jam for the small family, and as we were mounting we saw their faces smeared and streaked with "First Quality Damson." We started the climb almost at once. The early morning smoke filtering through the slats made an outer cone, of faint blue, above the black roof of every hut and cottage; here and there were traces of roadmaking, groups of Albanian workmen on stretches of levelled earth which our trail crossed at irregular intervals. Presently we entered the clouds, and were wrapped about with a thin mist faintly smelling of smoke. After a while we climbed above them, and looking down could see the clouds mottling all the landscape, and through holes little patches of sunlit field or wood peering through like the eyes of a Turkish woman through her yashmak.
Our horses panted and sweated up the long and arduous slope for two mortal hours, up and ever up; but all things come to an end, and at last we reached the top. We sat down to rest our weary animals and, lo! by us passed long strings of mules and ponies bearing the very benzine about which so much fuss had been made in Cettinje. Alas for our reputations as miracle workers! Had this blessed stuff only come a week later we should even have passed in Montenegro as first cousins of the king at least; but this was a little too prompt.
There was landscape enough here for any budding Turners, but we two had still eight hours to go and not money enough to loiter. On the higher peaks of the mountains there was already a fresh powdering of snow; in the valleys the clouds had almost cleared away, leaving a thin film of moisture which made shadows of pure ultramarine beneath the trees. Your modern commercial grinder cannot sell you this colour, it needs some of that pure jewel powder which old Swan kept in a bottle for use on his masterpiece, but found never a subject noble enough. Some of that stuff prepared from the receipt of old Cennino Cennini which ends "this is a work, fine and delicate, suitable for the hands of young maidens, but beware of old women." Pure Lapis Lazuli.
But it became difficult even for us to admire landscape, for breakfast had disappeared within us, and lunch seemed far away, so once more recourse to the "compressed luncheon." There are three stages in the taste of the "Tabloid." Stage one, when it smacks of glue; stage two, when it has a flavour of inferior beef tea, say 11.30 a.m.; stage three, when it resembles nothing but the gravy of the most delicious beef steak. That is about 2.30, and your lunch some hours in retard. We had reached stage three, and even Jo succumbed to the charms of the "Tab."
Famished we came to a café.
"Eggs?" we gasped to the host.
"Nema" (haven't got any), he replied.
"Milk?"
"Nema."
"Cheese?" crescendo.
"Nema."
"Bread?" fortissimo.
"Nema."
Despairing we swallowed three more luncheon tablets each and whined for tea. Ramases, who seemed to get along on tea alone, promised us a well-stocked café in an hour and a half.
The second café was purely Albanian. We climbed up some rickety stairs into a room which had—strange to relate—a fireplace. About the room was a sleeping dais where three or four black and white ruffians were couched. There was a little window with a deep seat into which we squeezed and loudly demanded eggs, bread and cheese. An old woman all rags and tatters came in and squeezed up alongside, where she crouched, spinning a long wool thread and staring up into Jo's face. Several cats were lounging about the room, but one came close and began to squirm as though she were "setting" a mouse. Suddenly she pounced, seized the old woman's food bag from her feet, swept it on to the floor, and disappeared with it beneath the dais, where all the rest of the cats followed. The old woman, who had been plying distaff and spindle the while, let out a yell of fury and half disappeared beneath the platform. We all roared with laughter, while beneath us the cats spat and the old woman cursed, beating about with the handle of her distaff till she had rescued her dinner. She backed out with the bag, sat down again and started spinning once more as though nothing had happened.
Beyond this café the track became very stony and rough. We passed a typical couple. The man was carrying a light bag full of bottles, while the women had on her back a huge wooden chest, in which things rattled and bumped as she stumped along.
Jo looked at her with pity. "That's heavy," she said.
The woman stared stupidly and answered nothing; but the man smiled and said—
"Yes, heavy. Bogami."
We passed more caravans of that all too soon benzine. Cliffs began to tower up on every side, and precipices to fall away beneath our feet to a greenish roaring torrent; great springs spouted from the rocks and dashed down upon the stones below in shredded foam: one was pink in colour. Here once a general and his lady were riding, and the lady's horse slipped. The general grasped her but lost his own balance, and both fell into the river and were killed. The track wound up and down, often very slippery underfoot, and the horses, shod with the usual flat plates of iron, were slithering and sliding on the edge of the precipices. At last we got off and walked. It was an immense relief: our saddles were intensely hard, stirrups unequal lengths, and with knots which rubbed unmercifully on the shins. We passed a man who was evidently an Englishman, and he stared at us as we passed, but neither stopped. The gorge grew deeper, the stream more rapid. The cliffs towered higher, black and grey in huge perpendicular stripes. We heard sounds of thunder or of blasting which reverberated in the canyon; it was oppressive and gloomy, and one shuddered to think what it would be like if an earthquake occurred. The cliffs ceased abruptly in a huge grass slope on which crowds of people were working on the new road; we crossed the river over a wooden bridge.
We came down into Ipek suddenly, past the old orange towered monastery, which lies, its outer walls half buried, keeping the landslides at bay. Ramases, who had suddenly put on another air, flung his leg over the saddle—he had previously been sitting sideways—and twisted his moustache skywards. Jo wished to canter on, but he sternly forbade her, flipping her horse on the nose and driving it back when she tried to pass; for it would have damned his manly dignity for ever had a woman preceded him.
Our first view of Ipek was of a forest of minarets shooting up from the orchards, not a house was to be seen. Ramases tried to make us lodge in a vague looking building. We asked him if that were the best hotel. He answered nonchalantly, "Nesnam" (don't know); so we hunted for ourselves, discovering in the main square a blue house labelled "Hotel Skodar" in large letters.
